The sudden call startled Lloyd so that she dropped the pan, and the great mud pie turned upside down on the white steps.
"Well, you're a pretty sight!" said the Colonel, as he glanced with disgust from her soiled dress and muddy hands to her bare feet.
He had been in a bad humour all morning. The sight of the steps covered with sand and muddy tracks gave him an excuse to give vent to his cross feelings.
It was one of his theories that a little girl should always be kept as fresh and dainty as a flower. He had never seen his own little daughter in such a plight as this, and she had never been allowed to step outside of her own room without her shoes and stockings.
"What does your mother mean," he cried, savagely, "by letting you run barefooted around the country just like poor white trash? An' what are you playing with low-flung niggers for? Haven't you ever been taught any better? I suppose it's some of your father's miserable Yankee notions."
May Lilly, peeping around the corner of the house, rolled her frightened eyes from one angry face to the other. The same temper that glared from the face of the man, sitting erect in his saddle, seemed to be burning in the eyes of the child, who stood so defiantly before him. The same kind of scowl drew their eyebrows together darkly.
"Don't you talk that way to me," cried the Little Colonel, trembling with a wrath she did not know how to express.
Suddenly she stooped, and snatching both hands full of mud from the overturned pie, flung it wildly over the spotless white coat.
Colonel Lloyd gasped with astonishment. It was the first time in his life he had ever been openly defied. The next moment his anger gave way to amusement.
"By George!" he chuckled, admiringly. "The little thing has got spirit, sure enough. She's a Lloyd through and through. So that's why they call her the 'Little Colonel,' is it?"
There was a tinge of pride in the look he gave her haughty little head and flashing eyes. "There, there, child!" he said, soothingly. "I didn't mean to make you mad, when you were good enough to come and see me. It isn't often I have a little lady like you pay me a visit."
"I didn't come to see you, suh," she answered, indignantly, as she started toward the gate. "I came to see May Lilly. But I nevah would have come inside yo' gate if I'd known you was goin' to hollah at me an'
be so cross."
She was walking off with the air of an offended queen, when the Colonel remembered that if he allowed her to go away in that mood she would probably never set foot on his grounds again. Her display of temper had interested him immensely.
Now that he had laughed off his ill humour, he was anxious to see what other traits of character she possessed. He wheeled his horse across the walk to bar her way, and quickly dismounted.
"Oh, now, wait a minute," he said, in a coaxing tone. "Don't you want a nice big saucer of strawberries and cream before you go? Walker's picking some now. And you haven't seen my hothouse. It's just full of the loveliest flowers you ever saw. You like roses, don't you, and pinks and lilies and pansies?"
He saw he had struck the right chord as soon as he mentioned the flowers. The sullen look vanished as if by magic. Her face changed as suddenly as an April day.
"Oh, yes!" she cried, with a beaming smile. "I loves 'm bettah than anything!"
He tied his horse, and led the way to the conservatory. He opened the door for her to pass through, and then watched her closely to see what impression it would make on her. He had expected a delighted exclamation of surprise, for he had good reason to be proud of his rare plants. They were arranged with a true artist's eye for colour and effect.
She did not say a word for a moment, but drew a long breath, while the delicate pink in her cheeks deepened and her eyes lighted up. Then she began going slowly from flower to flower, laying her face against the cool, velvety purple of the pansies, touching the roses with her lips, and tilting the white lily-cups to look into their golden depths.
As she passed from one to another as lightly as a butterfly might have done, she began chanting in a happy undertone.
Ever since she had learned to talk she had a quaint little way of singing to herself. All the names that pleased her fancy she strung together in a crooning melody of her own.
There was no special tune. It sounded happy, although nearly always in a minor key.
"Oh, the jonquils an' the lilies!" she sang. "All white an' gold an'
yellow. Oh, they're all a-smilin' at me, an' a-sayin' howdy! howdy!"
She was so absorbed in her intense enjoyment that she forgot all about the old Colonel. She was wholly unconscious that he was watching or listening.
"She really does love them," he thought, complacently. "To see her face one would think she had found a fortune."
It was another bond between them.
After awhile he took a small basket from the wall, and began to fill it with his choicest blooms. "You shall have these to take home," he said.
"Now come into the house and get your strawberries."
She followed him reluctantly, turning back several times for one more long sniff of the delicious fragrance.
She was not at all like the Colonel's ideal of what a little girl should be, as she sat in one of the high, stiff chairs, enjoying her strawberries. Her dusty little toes wriggled around in the curls on Fritz's back, as she used him for a footstool. Her dress was draggled and dirty, and she kept leaning over to give the dog berries and cream from the spoon she was eating with herself.
He forgot all this, however, when she began to talk to him.
"My great-aunt Sally Tylah is to our house this mawnin'," she announced, confidentially. "That's why we came off. Do you know my Aunt Sally Tylah?"
"Well, slightly!" chuckled the Colonel. "She was my wife's half-sister.
So you don't like her, eh? Well, I don't like her either."
He threw back his head and laughed heartily. The more the child talked the more entertaining he found her. He did not remember when he had ever been so amused before as he was by this tiny counterpart of himself.
When the last berry had vanished, she slipped down from the tall chair.
"Do you 'pose it's very late?" she asked, in an anxious voice. "Mom Beck will be comin' for me soon."
"Yes, it is nearly noon," he answered. "It didn't do much good to run away from your Aunt Tyler; she'll see you after all."
"Well, she can't 'queeze me an' kiss me, 'cause I've been naughty, an'
I'll be put to bed like I was the othah day, just as soon as I get home.
I 'most wish I was there now," she sighed. "It's so fa' an' the sun's so hot. I lost my sunbonnet when I was comin' heah, too."
Something in the tired, dirty face prompted the old Colonel to say, "Well, my horse hasn't been put away yet. I'll take you home on Maggie Boy."
The next moment he repented making such an offer, thinking what the neighbours might say if they should meet him on the road with Elizabeth's child in his arm.
But it was too late. He could not unclasp the trusting little hand that was slipped in his. He could not cloud the happiness of the eager little face by retracting his promise.
He swung himself into the saddle, with her in front. Then he put his one arm around her with a firm clasp, as he reached forward to take the bridle.
"You couldn't take Fritz on behin', could you?" she asked, anxiously.
"He's mighty ti'ed too."
"No," said the Colonel, with a laugh. "Maggie Boy might object and throw us all off."
Hugging her basket of flowers close in her arms, she leaned her head against him contentedly as they cantered down the avenue.
"Look!" whispered all the locusts, waving their hands to each other excitedly. "Look! The master has his own again. The dear old times are coming back to us."
"How the trees blow!" exclaimed the child, looking up at the green arch overhead. "See! They's all a-noddin' to each othah." "We'll have to get my shoes an' 'tockin's," she said, presently, when they were nearly home. "They're in that fence cawnah behin' a log."